Google DeepMind Workers Urge Company to Drop Military Contracts

Around 200 Google DeepMind workers signed a letter urging the tech giant to drop military contracts with multiple organizations earlier this year. The information has been revealed by TIME magazine in an exclusive with more details of the dispute.

TIME had access to the internal document, dated May 16th, and confirmed that multiple talents in the AI labs are “concerned by recent reports of Google’s contracts with military organizations.” The document also clarifies that it is not addressed to any particular conflict or current geopolitical situation.

In April, TIME revealed that Google has a contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defense for a program called Project Nimbus to supply AI and cloud computing services.

“Any involvement with military and weapon manufacturing impacts our position as leaders in ethical and responsible AI, and goes against our mission statement and stated AI Principles,” wrote the workers in the letter.

The machine learning talents that signed the petition represent only 5% of Google’s DeepMind workforce but reveal important internal differences and approaches towards how Google’s AI technology has been evolving.

According to the magazine, Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 and it had kept its autonomy and original principles until recent years. In 2021 the lab leaders tried to regain autonomy to get a more independent legal structure but the request was denied, and instead, Google merged Google Brain—its other AI team—with DeepMind.

“While DeepMind may have been unhappy to work on military AI or defense contracts in the past, I do think this isn’t really our decision anymore,” said a DeepMind worker to TIME.

Google has published its AI principles and assured that Project Nimbus is not “directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

However, a worker from DeepMind told TIME that the company’s response doesn’t confirm if it can enable violence and other negative developments, and it “is so specifically unspecific that we are all none the wiser on what it actually means.”

Since the letter began circulating in May, Google hasn’t put any of the suggestions into force, four people with knowledge of the situation told TIME. “We have received no meaningful response from leadership, and we are growing increasingly frustrated,” one of them said.